c_t; In terms of the level of weapons and equipment, Cheng Dapeng believed that the strength of the Dutch defenders was indeed not bad, almost all the soldiers were equipped with arquebuses, and a small number of elites used more advanced flintlock pistols. Individual protection measures are also in place, everyone has a full set of armor, at least two pieces of plate armor in the front and back to protect the vital parts of the torso, and this investment alone can be seen that the Dutch have indeed spent a lot of money on army building.

Under Cheng Dapeng's inquiry, Bart readily introduced the cost of these armors to him: "This most rudimentary cuirass requires 5 florins, while a regular infantry armor costs 7 florins, and a knight's armor for officers needs at least 35 florins, but that thing is too heavy to be worn on the body during battle." ”

Cheng Dapeng has been in Batavia for a long time, and naturally knows that the florin is the common currency unit in many European countries. It is a gold coin that was minted and circulated from Genoya and Florence in the 13th century, and later entered Western and Northern Europe through the guò trade route, and the florin became the official currency of the Netherlands at the beginning of the last century. However, in the Flemish language, which is spoken by the Dutch, the gold coin is also known as der, commonly known as the guilder.

Barthes, on the other hand, was not of Dutch descent, so he did not use the shield as a unit of currency, as was customary for the Dutch, but instead used the European name of the florin. Cheng Dapeng silently calculated in his heart, this cost is really not cheap, the value of an ordinary cuirass has already exceeded the monthly income of a metal craftsman in Batavia City at this time. And this can also reflect from the side how inefficient the production of munitions in Batavia is at present.

However, Cheng Dapeng was not very interested in Bart's show-off, because the Haihan militia had never advocated the use of heavy full-body armor, and only front-line troops would be equipped with simple and light plate armor, leather armor and rattan helmets in wartime. Cheng Dapeng once had the honor to visit an army military exercise, and the leaders who participated in the war did not wear heavy armor, and the protective gear was a round helmet of unknown material on the head and a bulging canvas vest gown on the body, at most counting the pair of high-barreled deep-toothed leather boots under their feet.

Of course, Haihan, who is proficient in military engineering, is not unable to make high-quality armor, but the leaders are like this, and under the effect of the upper and lower ranks, the Haihan militia has never relied on heavy armor to fight. Cheng Dapeng knows a thing or two about the reason for this, when he was training, he had seen the effect of shooting armor at a distance of 100 meters with the standard rifle of the militia group, whether it was Chinese armor or Western-style armor, the defense ability at this distance was quite limited. According to the chief, in the future, the role of individual armor is more to prevent secondary damage caused by various flying debris on the battlefield, and direct gun fire should not be expected to be blocked by armor.

However, the tactics of the Haihan militia have relatively high requirements for the battlefield mobility of the infantry, and the heavy armor will greatly affect the execution of tactics and the play of team combat ability. However, the weapon superiority and advanced tactics of the Haihan militia made it almost impossible for their opponents to shorten the combat distance between the two sides to within the range of their own weapons on the battlefield, and they were defeated before they could survive the stage of hand-to-hand combat, and the defensive role that armor could play in hand-to-hand combat became extremely limited. [There are almost all the books I want to read.,It's faster than the general station to be stable dìng a lot of updates.,There are no ads in the full text reads;.] ]

The Netherlands obviously did not have such an advantage, and even if they were equipped with more advanced firearms, they still had to put the importance of armor first and last. Bart chatted excitedly, and asked his subordinates to take a set of cavalry armor to show Cheng Dapeng.

After Cheng Dapeng got permission, he tried to carry it with his hands, and found that the weight of this set of armor was at least forty catties or more, and it was estimated that it would be laborious to even make movements when he put it on. However, its thickness is actually very limited, similar to that of ordinary porcelain bowls, and Cheng Dapeng believes that this thickness is not enough to withstand bullets within the range of Haihan muskets.

Bart praised the armor, noting several dents and scratches in the armor from enemy weapons during the last time the Blues attacked Batavia. If it weren't for the protection of this armor, he would have probably been shot through five or six times with a bow and arrow, plus slashed seven or eight times. And it was the military exploits he made last time that allowed him to be promoted to his current position.

Although Cheng Dapeng didn't look down on the "primitive" equipment of the Dutch, he still admired Barth's courage in this kind of battle. The troops led by him will not be timid in battle.

However, there were only more than 2,000 Dutch soldiers in Batavia, and they were deployed to the fortifications in the east, north, and west directions of the battle, and the strength was actually enough. The northern direction, which was facing the port of Batavia, was undoubtedly under the greatest pressure, but the Dutch soldiers who could be deployed in this direction were only about a thousand men, and they faced ten times as many enemies. In such a situation, the Dutch military had to use a large number of auxiliary forces to assist in the defense.

About 1,000 of the thousands of auxiliary troops in the city are permanent local security forces, which have regular training and a relatively complete establishment, equipment, and command system, and although their combat strength is not as good as that of the Dutch soldiers, they can also be used as regular troops in wartime. The rest of the men were more awkward, most of them were temporarily recruited during the war, including local natives, black slaves, Chinese, European immigrants, and even ronins from Japan and bearded Middle Eastern Arabs, as if they were a multinational force.

It can be said that the actual combat effectiveness and the combat determination of such an armed force, which is very diverse in culture, language, living habits, and even combat style, and which are temporarily conscripted, can be said to be very suspicious. After all, most of the people in this area are only here for the high salary during the war, and they may not really be able to share the same heart with the East India Company. It's okay to say that if the pressure on the city defense is great, there will be a question mark over whether these people can hold up on the front line.

This is not only thought by a layman like Cheng Dapeng, but the Dutch military will naturally notice the hidden dangers in it, so at present, the auxiliary army is only used as a reserve army, and is not deployed in large numbers to the front-line position. When talking about this army, Bart couldn't help but curse, but all he said was Flemish language, and Cheng Dapeng could only speculate from his expression and tone that Bart did not have a very good impression of the auxiliary army.

In addition, a large number of civilians have been recruited in the city, and these people are mainly responsible for logistics tasks such as transporting war materials and strengthening and repairing city fortifications. Although Cheng Dapeng didn't have to go in person, he still sent his subordinates to participate.

The visit lasted for more than an hour before it came to an end, but after Cheng Dapeng got so much intelligence information, he had further thoughts. He immediately asked Bart if he could come back another day to comfort the troops. Bart naturally wouldn't refuse such a good thing, and agreed with a smile, but still asked Cheng Da Pengtong guò Su Keyi to contact in advance to arrange the time.

Cheng Dapeng returned to his residence with a stomach full of information, and immediately rushed into the study and began to write a report. The detailed military information obtained on this trip far exceeds even the total number of years spent in the past two years of squatting in the country. On the one hand, this is due to luck, and on the other hand, it is true that he has done all his previous work in place, and finally received the due reward.

If it weren't for his personal image and social relationships in the past two years, it would have been difficult for him to gain the trust of someone like Su Keyi, let alone these circumstances later. And the management of personal image and social relations are all slowly accumulated little by little. He now somewhat understands why Chief Hao Wanqing said that intelligence work is "a thousand miles away without accumulating steps", and this job, which he initially regarded as a "spy", has now slowly developed a sense of accomplishment.

Cheng Dapeng wrote the report until midnight, and the enthusiasm in his heart slowly cooled down. At this time, he suddenly realized a very serious problem, in the current situation that the city of Batavia was surrounded by enemy troops, it was probably impossible to send the information collected in time.

In the past, Cheng Dapeng used to convey information to Sanya mainly through merchant ships that regularly traveled between Batavia and Annam. These merchant ships traveled between the two places in the name of transporting grain, and Cheng Dapeng could easily transmit written information during the delivery of goods with the captain. And hiding a stack of papers on a ship and avoiding inspection by the port tax collector is not a problem for professional intelligence officers like them. As soon as this information arrives at the port of Annam, its contents are sent to the base camp by telegram.

However, with Haihan's acquisition of the Anbuna Islands, a supply port in the South China Sea, there has been another more efficient way of information transmission in the past six months, that is, the intelligence is disembarked at the port of Ambuna and sent back to Sanya by telegram from the local area, so that the time required for intelligence transmission is about half shorter than in the past, and the efficiency has been improved accordingly.

But no matter which way it is transmitted, the first thing you have to do is send the information out to sea. And now that all the gates of Batavia City are closed, and the port on the seaside north of the city has fallen into the control of the Mataran army, there is probably no way to send the information away at this time.

Cheng Dapeng racked his brains for half the night, but he didn't come up with a way to send the information to sea safely. The Mata Blue Army has probably already controlled the coastline within a radius of twenty or thirty miles from Batavia, and even if they find a way out of the city now, they will not be able to reach the beach at all.

"Time is also fate!" Cheng Dapeng could only put away the written report and hide it in the secret compartment of the study.

Although it is not known what the attitude of the Executive Committee is towards the war in Batavia, this information on the defense of Batavia will certainly be a great achievement if it can be sent back in time. And when the war is over, a lot of that information will be out of date, and it won't be as useful as it is now. As for the credit, it can only be greatly reduced.

The current situation makes Cheng Dapeng have to settle for the next best, although he can't send information, but he can try to record the process of this war. In the future, when Haihan goes south, what he sees and hears today will become an important basis for the executive committee and the military to make decisions. Taking advantage of Su Keyi's relationship, he has to find an excuse to go to the city a few more times to watch the battle in the near future.

On the morning of July 12, when the fog on the seashore had not yet cleared, the lookouts at the head of the city faintly saw signs of the movement of the Mataran army outside the city, and hurriedly rang the bell to warn the city defense army.

Bart immediately returned to his combat position and used a telescope to observe the enemy positions in the distance. The first thing he noticed was not the Mataran army slowly advancing in a phalanx, but the tall wooden shelves that followed closely behind.

These tall timber frames are simple in structure, with a triangular structure underneath and a long transverse at the top, to which the middle part is fixed. Although it wasn't quite visible from a distance, Bart had already recognized the thing for what it really was—it was a grenadier belt trebuchet.

The trebuchet is one of the most powerful siege machines in the era of cold weapons, and it has appeared on the battlefields of the East and the West for a long time. For the Mata Blues, who do not have too many firearms and equipment, the trebuchet is undoubtedly a siege machine that is easy to manufacture and has a fairly good combat efficiency. In the first two attacks on Batavia, the Matar Blues also used trebuchets, but the results were not particularly satisfactory.

The main reason for this was that the trebuchets used at that time were slightly smaller in size and had a limited range, and they had to penetrate deep into the range of the city's fire prevention to play a role. Under the heavy fire of the city, the slow-moving trebuchets were often destroyed before they could be deployed, and the Matar army threw in seventy or eighty trebuchets back and forth, but in the end they only smashed a few small gaps in the city wall, and did not make much difference.

And trebuchets are not only available in the Matar Blue Army, but also in the city defense army, and there are dozens of catapults waiting within the city walls at this time. But these trebuchets have the same problem, that is, they have a short range, which makes it difficult to pose a real threat to enemies at a distance. Moreover, the trebuchets in the city had to use projectiles to climb over the city walls to hit the enemy, which undoubtedly shortened the already limited range.

If the Matarians were just going to play the old tactics, Bart would be happy to give them another memorable long-range firepower lesson. However, this time the Mada Blues were clearly more prepared than they had been last time, as the trebuchets they had seen so far were obviously much larger than their counterparts that had appeared on the battlefield last time. The crossbar at the top of the trebuchet was about fifty feet long, and it was clear that the Matarans had not been idle in the last two years and had improved the structure of their trebuchet. Even though the war hadn't started yet, Bart could already imagine that the range of the new trebuchet was probably much longer than the previous one